Monday, September 06, 2010

$12.8 trillion to rescue the U.S. economy

We all know about TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program, which spent $700 billion in taxpayers’ money to bail out banks after the financial crisis. That amount was scrutinized by Congress and the media. (What it actually accomplished is another story!)

But the focus of this post is that that $700 billion is just a small part of a much larger pool of money that has gone into propping up our nation’s financial system.

And most of that taxpayer money hasn’t had much public scrutiny at all.

According to a team at Bloomberg News, at one point last year the U.S. had lent, spent or guaranteed as much as $12.8 trillion to rescue the economy.

Just to refresh your memories on what one "trillion" dollars is:
That's one million times $1 million.
Or one thousand times $1 billion.